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2RobertDay
Tragic. I worked with Graham very many years ago - before he was a writer - and probably introduced him to sf & fantasy fandom. We saw each other infrequently, but he was always delighted to see me, no matter how long between meetings. The mark of true human greatness.
3iansales
I first met him in 1991 at Mexicon 4. He was there promoting his first novel Dreamside. I read it that weekend and interviewed him on the Sunday. We'd both been up until 4 am drinking Mexican beer the night before, so neither of us were really in a state to interview or be interviewed. Afterwards, I sent him a verbatim transcript of the interview. He replied, "I remember it as being quite an insightful interview, so who were those two fucking Martians on the tape?" He'll be missed.
4anglemark
Sorely missed. I first noticed him at the 2005 Worldcon and went on to buy a few of his books on the strength of how funny and sympathetic he was in that panel, and found that I loved his books. He's up there with my top ten favourite authors.
I went on to invite him as a guest of honour to the Swedish national convention in 2009, and he was such a fabulous guy: Intelligent and deadly serious about his business and about politics. I've followed him during his illness and I have never seen someone turn a deadly illness into such a celebration of life, beauty, and kindness.
I went on to invite him as a guest of honour to the Swedish national convention in 2009, and he was such a fabulous guy: Intelligent and deadly serious about his business and about politics. I've followed him during his illness and I have never seen someone turn a deadly illness into such a celebration of life, beauty, and kindness.
5dukedom_enough
So sorry to lose another fine writer.
6Jargoneer
Sad news, out very old at all. I was listening to him on Radio 4 recently discussing the language of cancer but I didn't realise that it was that serious. For those interested you can hear it here - Word of Mouth - Talking About Cancer. PS Publishing have a big collection of his best short stories out this month.
7AHS-Wolfy
Sad to hear of his passing. I've only read a couple of his books so far but intend to read more as I've enjoyed those that I have. I think I'll pick the one I have that does currently reside on my tbr shelves as my next read.
11stellarexplorer
He wrote lovely books.
13RobertDay
This recollection of Graham only surfaced a few days ago, and I felt I had to share it.
As I said above, I first met Graham when we worked together on a job creation scheme in 1978-79. (The British Government's reaction to unemployment then was to find useful jobs for people, and even to create some temporary ones where that was a good solution, rather than send people to work for nothing for big employers who could afford to pay them but would sooner accept state subsidy, as happens now. Sorry. Political rant over.)
We were employed by the Derbyshire County Council in their Schools Resources Centre. We were part of a team building a new catalogue of audio-visual resources; the previous catalogue was ten years out of date, since when there had been some major reorganisation and two collections merged into one. One of the services this centre offered was what used to be called the "Schools Museum Service", which was a small collection of artefacts that were circulated around schools in the county. As I remember it from my junior school days, these mainly consisted of stuffed animals, though there were also archaeological finds and a number of original oil paintings and watercolours, amongst other things.
When we got around to cataloguing these artefacts, we had to open up every case, and in one we found an ORIGINAL Greek Hoplite's helmet. The case it was in was liberally plastered with warnings about how fragile this helmet was: it wasn't in fantastic condition, and part of it was corroded away to a thin shell.
Graham could not resist this helmet. He was quite blown away by the fact that here was a 2000-year old artefact, that unlike other historical exhibits was recognisably a thing, and that had a direct connection to someone long since dead and forgotten. He carefully looked around the storeroom we were in, and then gently put the helmet on. It was a tight fit - Graham was quite a big chap, and the helmet was rather small anyway - but he was able to put it on, and take it off again without damage.
The sense of power he felt, Graham later said, was palpable. Perhaps it's no coincidence that he later went to live on a Greek island for a time. I don't recollect any Hoplites in his novels, but the awe he felt at handling and wearing that helmet was typical of the man and I think is echoed in some of his later writings.
As I said above, I first met Graham when we worked together on a job creation scheme in 1978-79. (The British Government's reaction to unemployment then was to find useful jobs for people, and even to create some temporary ones where that was a good solution, rather than send people to work for nothing for big employers who could afford to pay them but would sooner accept state subsidy, as happens now. Sorry. Political rant over.)
We were employed by the Derbyshire County Council in their Schools Resources Centre. We were part of a team building a new catalogue of audio-visual resources; the previous catalogue was ten years out of date, since when there had been some major reorganisation and two collections merged into one. One of the services this centre offered was what used to be called the "Schools Museum Service", which was a small collection of artefacts that were circulated around schools in the county. As I remember it from my junior school days, these mainly consisted of stuffed animals, though there were also archaeological finds and a number of original oil paintings and watercolours, amongst other things.
When we got around to cataloguing these artefacts, we had to open up every case, and in one we found an ORIGINAL Greek Hoplite's helmet. The case it was in was liberally plastered with warnings about how fragile this helmet was: it wasn't in fantastic condition, and part of it was corroded away to a thin shell.
Graham could not resist this helmet. He was quite blown away by the fact that here was a 2000-year old artefact, that unlike other historical exhibits was recognisably a thing, and that had a direct connection to someone long since dead and forgotten. He carefully looked around the storeroom we were in, and then gently put the helmet on. It was a tight fit - Graham was quite a big chap, and the helmet was rather small anyway - but he was able to put it on, and take it off again without damage.
The sense of power he felt, Graham later said, was palpable. Perhaps it's no coincidence that he later went to live on a Greek island for a time. I don't recollect any Hoplites in his novels, but the awe he felt at handling and wearing that helmet was typical of the man and I think is echoed in some of his later writings.
16dukedom_enough
Merits inclusion in The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.
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